Posts by angelnorelation

Have you been following the chronicles of our BFF here at Nerds in Babeland, BugEyes? If not, why not? Everything I write is golden, and also you should miss the ’90s. It was the greatest decade ever. People are always like, “If you could go back to any time, where would you go?” I would do the ’90s all over again. But, I digress.

If you wanted some closure but didn’t feel like you got it before, check out this YouTube clip, where we see him in action behind good old Agent K, whom you should remember from the ’90s. If not, you were probably neuralized, so consult your VHS collection immediately.

We only get a glimpse of BugEyes, but he’s clearly up to something. Here is a list of possible things he could be doing:

Saving the world.Likeliness: Unlikely. He’s 14. I have a sister who is 12 and she can’t figure out how to use the microwave.

Walking casually back and forth trying to get Agent K’s attention.Likeliness: Probable. This is what I do whenever I want someone who’s way cooler than me to notice me at work. I just come up with excuses to walk back and forth until they see me and speak to me. Okay, so I’ve been in actual awe of my employers before. BIG DEAL.

Being sent on an errand.Likeliness: Highly likely. If a 14-year-old kid works for you, even if he has great promise, and you work at an organization focused on keeping terrestrial citizens and extraterrestrials safe, you probably make him lick a lot of envelopes and go out and buy a lot of coffee.

Snooping.Likeliness: I bet he has tried, then realized there’s no point, so unlikely. He’s like one of those women who went to college in the ’50s to find a husband. He may have been ruthlessly devoted to the truth before, but now he’s like, “I no longer need this. I have gotten what I wanted. You guys find your own truth!” I can’t blame him. It’s rough trying to get a job you like in this economy. You wouldn’t want to ruin it like that.

Trying to walk off all the weight he gained eating so much surprise cake.Likeliness: He’s a 14-year-old boy. That jerk can probably eat whatever he wants without experiencing weight gain.

So what do you guys think? Will you miss BugEyes? You’ll probably see him again sometime. Wear sunglasses.

As you may recall from some previous updates on the subject, we here at Nerds in Babeland were following the exploits of the 14-year-old BugEyes, a conspiracy theorist with big dreams, and his website, TheMenInBlackSuitsAreReal.com. He’s been on the trail of a mysterious “Pink Surprise Cake,” on sale en masse with purchase of tattoo at Clive’s Tattoo Parlor, and finally, he seems to have figured out the answer: documents! People were hiding documents in the cake to keep them hidden from the Men in Black Suits, because people ALWAYS go to tattoo parlors to get cake and documents. I KNOW I DO. It’s how I ended up with this weird tattoo of Tony Stark on my bosom. I just went in to sign some papers.

What were the documents? Perhaps only time will tell. Perhaps the documents include Arianna Huffington’s long-form birth certificate (SURE, ARIANNA, I BELIEVE YOU [it is interesting to note that neither James Franco nor Stephanie, co-founder of this blog, have come forward with THEIR birth certificates after MY accusations, but I guess no one takes me seriously]).

Whatever the case, as you can see in the video, BugEyes’ dedication to the cause was rewarded by membership in the elite and mysterious group of Men in Black Suits.

Can we talk about this? For one, I’ve been devoted to this since the ’90s, and the Men in Black Suits have YET TO CALL ME. Or even e-mail me. What a disappointment! What does a girl have to do? I can eat cake. I WILL dive in a dumpster for a full-time job. I’m just that desperate for one.

For another, it seems hideously irresponsible of the Men in Black Suits to enlist a 14-year-old kid. I’m just saying, he can’t even go into R-rated movies by himself! He probably hasn’t even finished taking Algebra II! This is the guy you want to help keep space aliens in line with the rules of Earth? PICK ME INSTEAD. I look great in black, and can type over 135 words per minute!

Well, “Mr. Eyes,” as Arianna Huffington calls you, it was nice chillaxing with you, and I hope you enjoy your time in a wonderful job that I can’t even get two years out of college. ENJOY IT. It is kind of adorable so I can’t be that mad. I’m just saying, I wouldn’t have to sit on a park bench all night and watch the sun set over the New York skyline like SOME PEOPLE. I won’t name names. I’m just saying, I would chill out, max, and relax all cool in that job. No b-ball, though.

Courtesy: the Internet.Arianna Huffington preparing to remove her human face.

Have you ever gone to the Huffington Post before, read a couple of the articles, and then been solidly convinced that something really bizarre or really sinister is going on?

Well, I know I have. Don’t pretend like you haven’t, either. Recently, Patton Oswalt began a Twitter hashtag, #BandNamesFromHuffPoHeadlines, which wasn’t just because the Huffington Post is internationally renowned for its status as a jumping-off point for indie music. NO. It is because strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

“But why?” you ask yourself. “What is the big picture? What is the point of all this? What am I not getting? Oh god! The horror, the horror!”

Well, our friend BugEyes from TheMeninBlackSuitsAreReal may at last have an answer: Arianna Huffington, extraterrestrial? That’s what BugEyes claims in this editorial that he had the gall to actually write on the Huffington Post. A tip from someone who is admittedly not successful enough to write for the Huffington Post so maybe you shouldn’t take my advice after all (for those interested in immediately hiring me to write for big name blogs, see my resume…it’s a rough economy), but maybe think of it as a tip from someone who can read and has common sense: perhaps it’s not the greatest idea in the world to accuse a globally (and perhaps extra-globally) recognized author, for whose blog you have been asked to contribute, of being an alien. I wonder what Arianna Huffington will have to say about all this.

On a related note, I have reason to believe that one of the founders of this blog is an alien also. I’m not going to name names, because I’m not the Fox Mole, or something, but I’ll give you a hint: her name rhymes with Wephanie Blooten. I also have pretty convincing evidence that James Franco is not of this Earth, BugEyes. So, Earthlings, feel free to drop me a comment and let me know what you think, or go ahead and just tell BugEyes on his Facebook.

Well, judging by this video, the surprise ingredient is dumpster. I’m putting it out there. BugEyes, do not eat cake that you find in the trash. Cake that a crazed supervillain sent you, yes. Cake from a serial killer, yes. BUT DO NOT EAT CAKE FROM THE TRASH. GOD. 14-year-old boys can be so gross. I once paid a boy a dollar in high school not to drink the half-finished bottle of Coke he found sitting in the middle of the parking lot in front of me.

Anyway, in addition to finding Clive’s Tattoo Parlor he has also found a contraption that seems to extract the core from the cake, which is RIDICULOUS because THE FROSTING IS THE BEST PART. But what could be in the core?

If you have any tips for BugEyes, you can drop him a line at 1 (888) 202-9797. I have a tip for BugEyes: DON’T EAT DUMPSTER CAKE.

What is a “monocycle”? What do a tattoo parlor, a cake, and a really bizarre Chinese food menu (I tried to order the blob fish and the crab cooks whore dust but apparently they don’t deliver this far) have to do with each other? I’m glad you asked, or I’m glad I asked and you read it aloud to yourself, as you are wont to do, probably.

Just ask BugEyes126, the 14-year-old investigator behind “The Men in Black Suits Are Real,” devoted to uncovering the existence of alien lifeforms right here on Earth (unless you are not reading this from Earth, in which case, you’ll really confuse our stats tracker unless you are using a proxy server) and a secret government agency that works with these extraterrestrials. A much talked-about subject in the mid-’90s, BugEyes has brought it back in vogue again.

It is clear that BugEyes–and that’s the only name he’ll give–is not alone. Over the course of his blog’s existence, he has amassed over 45,000 followers who have joined him in his call to action to get to the bottom of the situation. How do these “Men in Black” operate, and how can we prove their existence? After all, many a great scientist has said that there is virtually no way that we are alone in the universe, but what if we are not alone on our own planet? And who decided cake and tattoos mix? I actually think it’s a really good business model.

BugEyes has just uncovered this strange monocycle in his quest for the truth (which, as you know, is out there). Supposedly developed in the 1930s, it utilized bizarre technology far more advanced than that of its time, topping over 100 MPH. Why haven’t you heard of it? I DON’T KNOW. Until today, the evidence of it had been erased from all records. Could this be the result of alien technology, or is there a reasonable explanation? If you want to know more about this bizarre device, visit BugEyes’ website at TheMenInBlackSuitsAreReal.com (or if you already know more, you can leave him a tip on his Facebook page). Supported by his own research and anonymous tips, BugEyes is greatly advancing the cause of everyone like him who believes that the Men in Black Suits are, indeed, reality. (I’d just love to catch up with this kid. Apart from being adorable, I know he has cake.) Alternatively, to see all the evidence he’s assembled in convenient flow chart form, visit Following BugEyes. His YouTube channel is also worth a look, compiling phone calls he’s received from viewers like you and suspicious videos he’s found on the YouTube in addition to his own videos. Decide for yourself what you believe.

Also, I will karate chop the first person who says “the cake is a lie” near me in the neck. This is just how I operate.

Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there. Well, since you’re here, I guess it’s that time of year again, when we go through last year’s best films, and then nominate two or three of them for Best Picture Oscars and six other acceptable movies for the rest.

In 2010 the possible number of nominees for the Best Picture category was raised to 10, which made seeing all the nominees twice as difficult and usually included at least one or two really mediocre movies where you were like, “Really? You think this is one of the ten best movies of last year?” This year, because they no longer HAD to nominate 10, and because they were having a really classy year in which they hired a homophobe to direct the Oscars who later quit after he made himself the asshole of Hollywood if he wasn’t already, the Academy decided to only nominate nine movies, because of course, there were only nine movies last year. (As far as I’m concerned, this is the only excuse.)

I’d just like to take a moment out to point out what bullshit it is that Bridesmaids didn’t get the 10th nomination, as I’m pretty sure the category’s expansion to 10 was just so movies like Bridesmaids COULD be nominated. Would I have expected it to win? No. Would it have been great to see a movie that clearly featured, at least according to the Academy, Oscar-caliber writing and acting score a Best Picture nom as well, since it was obviously operating within that sphere? Yes. Do I think it would have really helped the state of women in movies? Yes, actually I do. But the Academy, because it wants you to know that it doesn’t have to nominate 10 movies, only nominated nine.

Anyway, let’s sit and talk about those nine movies, several of which are good, some of which are okay, and one of which made me want to claw my own brain out and then eat it. Annoyingly for my post-writing purposes, a lot of the acting nominees aren’t from these movies, making it harder to discuss that, but don’t worry about it. At the end I’m gonna briefly summarize who is likely to win (not necessarily whom I, personally, wish would win), whether or not they’re from these nine movies. But in case you didn’t see them, and want to sound knowledgeable and like you did so you can argue with your friends using subjective analyses, please feel free. Also please feel free to argue with me, unless you want to argue about Tree of Life, in which case there’s no point.

For your convenience, here’s an easy way to jump from movie to movie, if you don’t want to read them all (since, even with only nine movies, this post is monstrous), and also for the most part they are free of spoilers that you wouldn’t find on the back of a DVD cover or something unless otherwise indicated.

The blessing and the curse of a show like Dexter is its inevitable season 4. Every show worth anything has one: the game-changing season, the one that’s obviously the best and no one can ever top it. For the rest of the time the show’s on air people’ll be like, “Yeah, but it’s not as good as that one season,” longing for the good old days of that one season, like it’s Mom’s recipe for cookies and while other cookies may be acceptable and even delicious they’re just not like Mom’s, and therefore, they suck.

I read an article before season 5 of even began production suggesting season 4 was so goddamn good that it had jumped the shark. By being too good. Because you could never ever top it. At the time I thought it was a silly notion, but as more time passes, and more people grow critical of the show for reasons I can’t understand much of apart from “it’s not as pants-pissingly amazing as the last few episodes of season 4,” I’m starting to believe it.

As fans, we’re not always quite sure what we want. On the one hand, lots of Dexter fans love the show the way it used to be; on the other hand, they understand that you can never go back to the beginning or it’ll all have been futile. Shows have tried and failed at this before (Heroes). And now Dexter is in an awkward position of being damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. People are growing tired of the formula, tired of Dexter still confronting problems with himself that he had in season 1, but at the same time, when he evolves and grows and learns from his mistakes, people complain that he’s not like he used to be. How can he possibly be both things? And yet we want the opposite of whatever we get. The grass is always greener, etc. I think sometimes we long for a time machine, so we could go back to that time before we knew and were used to Dexter, and still be surprised and amazed that it even exists at all. I think a lot of the complaints people have with the show are based in some inherent desire we all have to be, I don’t know, younger again.

But when you have a mind-blowing life-altering experience, you’re not going to be the same person you were before. And when you live in the universe of Dexter Morgan, one in which literally every day is a harrowing battle of life and death and also bath time (in the best and worst ways), the stakes are always high, and sometimes things change. We’ve seen Dexter morph from a single serial killing bachelor to a serial killing widower and dad. He’s seen consequences for what he’s done. He’s seen love and loss. What kind of show would Dexter be if, after all these years, and after all these things that Dexter has done, and that have happened to him, he has never been punished, or never changed, or ever questioned himself? So stop asking for the old Dexter again. You cannot have him back. You can never go home. It will never be the same. Move on.

I won’t disagree that season 6 has had its share of problems. I practically shat myself on more than one occasion but I still didn’t feel the religious fervor for it that I felt in season 4. (And you know what? Season 4 had ITS share of problems, too, it’s just everyone forgot what they were in retrospect.) And when I did some soul searching and asked myself exactly why that was (for me this is heavy soul searching), the answer was exactly what I said above: it’s like reading Harry Potter for the 13th time (this applies to almost anything you’ve read or seen excessively). It could still be the most amazing book you’ve ever read, but no matter how hard you try, you can never go back to the first time you read it. And you want to. You remember the feeling of magic, the excitement of its newness, the disbelief that something so cool could exist. But now it’s a part of your life. If someone came up to you and said, “Hey, you should check this book out. It’s about a boy who goes to a wizard school,” you’d be like, “Yeah, and?”

So stick with me while I try to understand the negative reactions to season 6 when I don’t really feel that way, and then we’ll speculate a bit on the lasting repercussions. (Which, by the way, was one gripe I heard people going on about with this season. “It was pointless.” Only inasmuch as TV as a whole is pointless, but apart from that….)

If you wanna check the other two posts I’ve made about this season for Nerds in Babeland, check them right here for the most recent (surprisingly not wholly outdated) and here for the earlier one. And if you’re super curious and want to know the thoughts of several, check out the Dexter podcast I run, Let’s Talk About Dex. (Actually last week we interviewed Dexter‘s costume designer, which was amazingly illuminating and inspires and defines some of the points made in this post.)

There are spoilers up to and including 6×12 after the jump. (There are also links to individual sections so if you just got here by Googling, Eliot’ing, or Netrangling one thing, you can skip straight to that part, since I am well aware that this is the size of a novel. But get over it. Anyway I’m just not putting the links before the jump because they are spoilers in and of themselves. Except this one: Louis Greene.)

It’s been like four episodes since we last talked about Dexter, so it’s time to play catch-up. What’s changed in season 6, and what’s going to happen in the remaining two episodes? LET US DISCUSS. At length!

For ease of use, I’m including some links directly to bits related to certain people or plots, so if you only want to know about, say, Louis Greene (YOU DO), then you can just click the link that says “Louis Greene.” Convenient, right? You’re welcome.

First, a recap! There be spoilers up to and including 6×10, “Ricochet Rabbit,” here. (There are no spoilers for the future. Only speculation.)

It’s days like these that I kind of wish I hadn’t decided to only do two or three Dexter posts this season and that one of them wasn’t going to be after episode 6, as it’s a terrible shame to deprive oneself of the opportunity to humbly brag about how you totally either called or in the very least ominously foreshadowed a bunch of shit that apparently was all going to happen in the same episode.

(Actually I kind of can. I have proof. Along with a couple of other people who are neat, including some from this very blog, many of the twists and turns of this episode had been at least vaguely anticipated in our Dexter podcast, Let’s Talk About Dex. Which you should check out. I’m going for a Nerds in Babeland bump).

Below you’ll find a quick recap of the season so far, along with several hypotheses for the future that may or may not be correct and the occasional bout of congratulating myself on being a master of the universe.

So for those of you who haven’t seen the most recent episode of Dexter yet, don’t ruin the most mind-blowing badass experience you may ever have watching an episode by clicking the jump. I know people like you are out there, and while I appreciate that you actually read these things at all, it would upset me to know that you’d completely ruined one of the few chances one has in life to react to a television show like Jack Donaghy reacts when receiving a cool toy as a child.

One day, maybe 13 years ago, my 5th grade teacher opened a book up after lunch and started reading from it. It seems remarkable to me now, 13 years later, that I have absolutely no recollection of that day. I feel like it should be some kind of holiday. It should be marked on my calendar. I should remember what I was wearing, where I was sitting, what the weather was like, what the air smelled like when I first heard the words “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” It seems actually ridiculous that a day of such monumental importance that has literally changed every single day of my life since could have been so easily forgotten.

At the age of 10, or 11–I don’t even remember how old I was, how’s that for you–I do remember sitting on the edge of my seat listening to the book practically ready to stand up shouting to my classmates, “DON’T YOU GUYS GET IT? HE’S TOTALLY A WIZARD.” It’s hard for me to believe that there was ever a time where finding out that Harry Potter was a wizard could’ve been a surprise, one of the many possible answers for all the weird shit surrounding this kid who was 10 (going on 11–like us). I was so frustrated with how fucking slowly my teacher was reading the first couple of chapters that I conned my dad out of $20 and bought the fucking book myself at the Barnes & Noble in the mall where he worked. Funnily, I don’t remember finishing it. I wonder if everybody else in my classroom was having the same reaction, this same slow acceptance that somehow, without even really noticing it happen, something extraordinary had sneaked into our lives. I wonder how many of those people with their heads on their desks changed irrevocably as a result of this seemingly-unremarkable day that my teacher opened up this book and started reading. But really, for me, at least, it started in that bookstore, in that mall, on that otherwise-uninteresting day.

If I have to explain why I loved Harry Potter, then there’s no point explaining it. Don’t you already know? Isn’t the reason that this generation loves Harry Potter pretty well covered at this point? I can’t come up with a single thing that I haven’t already heard somebody say much, much better than I did. If you love Harry Potter, then you know. If you don’t, then you don’t, but I bet you still know–is it so hard to understand why a bunch of kids would love to read about a school for magic, a school so much better than that crappy school they were forced to attend (whichever school it was, trust me, it was crappy, or at least crappier than Hogwarts, which was so fucking pimp that it was in a goddamn castle), and a few kids who go there who had the power to change the entire world?

I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 17 times that summer. I counted. I kept finishing it and would, exasperatedly, throw my hands in the air and start over again because there was nothing else but to read it again. I remember I halfheartedly tried to read some other book, but in the end I’m pretty sure I ended up putting it back in the drawer I took it out of and reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone again. There was no number on the side of the book. I didn’t know anybody else who had read it. There was no internet in my house. I just remember being all alone that summer with these pretty crazy guys–Harry, Ron, and Hermione (they were totally off the hook)–absolutely positively dying to talk about them with somebody and literally not being able to find anybody to talk to about it. But these were some people I could get behind. They were 11–like me–and doing all kinds of crazy shit. Yeah, they were going to school, and doing their homework (it couldn’t be avoided when you were 11), but on the side they were solving mysteries and getting into all kinds of crazy shenanigans. Occasionally, and I know for sure that I was 11 by this point, I would stand out on the porch in the morning and wait for my owl to show up. I knew the ropes. I was 11. It ought to be turning up any day now. It had to turn up in time for me to show up on September 1st, anyway, or I’d miss the first day of term and that would be unacceptable. I was totally Hermione back when I was 11.

(I’m still waiting on that owl, by the way. When it comes, you can bet your sweet ass I shall be attending Hogwarts. I don’t care if I’ll be a 23-year-old first year and it’ll be all Strangers with Candy-like. Whatever. I can be that cool person who buys liquor for the 13-year-olds. No, I wouldn’t do that. Probably.)

Whatever the case when I returned to school that fall–still having not received my owl I decided I was going to suck it up and go to Muggle school until it showed up anyway–I still, remarkably, had almost nobody to talk to about this book. It was like I had made the entire thing up. I was halfway convinced I was totally delusional until some other kid in my class mentioned the book aloud when the teacher was discussing the book reports we would be doing that year. Retrospectively I almost think he was trying to do the same thing I had been–just figure out if anybody else had read the thing for the love of god. “Would it be all right if we did Harry Potter?” he asked.